Ahlam Chemlali is a PhD fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), in the Department of Migration and Global Order, and Aalborg University in Copenhagen. Her research focuses on migration and the human consequences of European border politics in North Africa with a particular emphasis on the intersections of violence, smuggling, and gender. Chemlali has published in several high-ranking research journals such as Geopolitics, Trends in Organized Crime and JEMS and has received prestigious awards for her work, including the Elite Researcher Grant. She has been a guest researcher at Yale University and UCLA in California and her work and commentary has been featured in both national and international media outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, France24, Africa News, BBC, and the L.A. Times.